How much is hockey becoming a truly international sport?
I came across a YouTube video from 2012 – before this blog was created – on the AnaheimDucks hosting a clinic for a Mexican youth hockey team at the National Hockey League team’s California practice facility.
I don’t know if the Ducks have repeated this endeavor – I’m waiting to hear back from the team. Hello? But it wouldn’t surprise me if this one clinic helped spur more interest in hockey south of the border and benefit Mexico’s national hockey program.
In January, Mexico won the International Ice Hockey Federation’sUnder-20 Division IIIworld championship at a tournament in Mexico City.
Last July, the Dallas Stars invited three members of South Korea’s national hockey program to its development training camp in Texas. The Stars extended the invitation at the request of former NHLer Jim Paek, who’s looking to build a competitive South Korea hockey team for the 2018 Winter Olympics, which the country will host in Pyeongchang.
Four years later, it will be China’s turn. Beijing will host the 2022 Winter Games. And Andong Song, who became the first player born in China to be drafted by an NHL team when the New York Islanders took him in the 6th round with the 172nd overall pick of the 2015 draft, has become the young face of his country’s Winter Olympics effort.
Like South Korea, China is quickly trying to build a hockey team good enough to compete with Canada, the United States, Russia, and other major hockey powers at the Winter Games. Song, a defenseman who skated for Massachusetts’ Phillips Academy, this season, could be its captain.
India is trying to become more of a presence on the international hockey stage, too. Money is tight, equipment is scarce, and the talent pool is thin, but that’s not stopping a group of very determined women from dreaming of someday competing in the Olympics.
India’s women’s team played its first international match last month and got crushed by Singapore, 8-1 in the Challenge Cup of Asia. Still, India’s women’s team hopes to advance to next year’s Asian Winter Games. To do that, the team must leapfrog Singapore, Thailand and Chinese Taipaei.
Female or male, it’s not easy being a hockey player in India. For all our nostalgic talk of playing the game on frozen ponds and lakes in North America and Europe, it’s a way of life for most Indian players. Many of them come from Ladakh, near the Himalayas and can only play for two or three months when the ponds are frozen.
A country with more than 1.2 billion people has only 10 indoor ice rinks, according to the International Ice Hockey Federation. The cricket-mad nation has 1,104 hockey players – 315 men, 541 juniors and 248 women and girls.
Take some time and watch the excellent Al Jazeera English feature below on the fun and frustration of playing hockey in India.
The efforts by India, South Korea, China and Mexico prove that, when it comes to hockey, it’s truly a small world.
Congratulations to Mexico for winning the International Ice Hockey Federation’s Under-20Division III world championship this week at a tournament played in Mexico City.
Mexico crushed South Africa 9-2 to capture the crown in a round-robin tournament that featured teams from Israel, Turkey, Bulgaria and New Zealand.
The victory moves Mexico – currently ranked 32nd in the world by the IIHF -up the ladder to Division II competition. Mexico has a population of 121,736,809 that includes 2,020 hockey players – 243 men, 1,427 juniors, and 350 women, according to IIHF figures.
Winning on the international stage is becoming a habit for Mexico. The Under-20 men’s squad took home the Gold Medal in 2005 and 2011 – when both tournaments were played on Mexican soil. In 2014, Mexico’s women’s national team finished first in a IIHF Division II B qualification tournament.
As members of the U.S. Army, Rico Roman and Jen Lee are part of America’s first line of defense. As members of the U.S. Paralympic Sled Hockey team, Roman and Lee are the last line of defense.
Roman is a rugged defensemen who took to sled hockey because it reminded him of the hard-hitting football he played in his youth in Portland, Ore. Lee decided to don goalie gear because it brought back memories of playing net while growing up in San Francisco.
Neither man envisioned that they would become world-class athletes who’d be on the cusp of competing in the 2014 Paralympics in Sochi, Russia, this March. But neither of them envisioned losing a limb, a devastating event that can alter the trajectory of a person’s life.
But don’t plan pity parties for Roman and Lee. They’ve turned tragedy into triumph by playing a sport they never thought they’d play that’s taking them to places that they never thought they’d go.
Army Staff Sgt. Rico Roman hopes to be Sochi-bound. (Photo/USA Hockey, Bill Wippert)
“I didn’t watch hockey, I don’t come from a hockey state, Oregon isn’t hockey country,” Roman told me recently. “Never did I know there was a Paralympic team. I never, never, never, never thought I’d be traveling and playing for the U.S.A. team.”
Hockey hurts: the vulcanized rubber puck that travels at speed in excess of 100 miles per hour always seems to find a section of unprotected flesh to strike and teeth-rattling body checks are jarring.
But hockey also heals, body and soul. And for Roman, 32, and Lee, 27, the game provided the right medicine at the right time.
“I think a lot of people thought, hey, our goal would be to try to walk again, or even run,” Lee told me. “Getting involved in this sport, to get out there, move around, play for the national team and represent your country and play all over internationally, it’s really cool.”
Army Staff Sergeant Rico Roman is the first war-wounded veteran to land a spot on the U.S. National sled hockey team. He joined the Army in 2001 after graduating from Alpha High School in Gresham, Ore.
Roman in action. (Photo/USA Hockey, Bill Wippert)
On February 22, 2007, Roman was working his third tour in Iraq, finishing work at a security checkpoint that day at Sadar al Yusuf. He decided that his Humvee would lead the vehicular caravan back to base.
It was struck by an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) and the blast damaged both of Roman’s legs. The pain in his left leg became so unbearable that a year later he opted to have it amputated just above the knee.
While recovering at the Brooke Medical Center at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas, Roman was approached by members of Operation Comfort, a nonprofit group that provided rehabilitative and therapeutic programs for wounded vets at the medical center.
The son of a Mexican-American mother and Puerto Rican father, Roman took up hand cycling, using specialized bikes for disabled users, and wheelchair basketball with competitive zeal. When Operation Comfort staffers suggested to Roman that he try sled hockey, he shook his head.
Once Operation Comfort staffers got Roman to the rink, they couldn’t get him out. He joined the San Antonio Rampage, a sled hockey team comprised of military veterans. He joined the U.S. National team in the 2011-12 season.
“Once I got on the ice, I was hooked,” said Roman, a Purple Heart recipient. “I’m so happy they (Operation Comfort) did that for me. Now I do what they were doing; I go to Brooke Army Medical Center and I try to recruit guys to come try it out. And they tell me the same thing I said ‘I don’t play hockey, I don’t watch hockey.’ I go ‘I said the exact same thing you told me right now and now I’m on the Paralympic team heading to Russia.'”
Army Staff Sergeant Jen Lee is teammates with Roman on the Rampage and the U.S. Paralympics team. He enlisted in the Army after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania. Lee, 27, ended up at Brooke Army Medical Center after being involved in a motorcycle accident in 2009. His left leg was amputated above the knee. But the surgery didn’t dim his competitive athletic nature.
Staff Sgt. Jen Lee hopes to tend goal for U.S. team at Paralympics. (Photo/USA Hockey, Bill Wippert)
He embraced adaptive sports offered by Operation Comfort as part of his physical therapy regimen. His hockey experience as a kid convinced him to give sled hockey a chance.
“I couldn’t skate really well playing in-line, so I tried goalie,” he said. “When sled hockey came around, I had the same concept: I’m not great skating, I played goalie before, maybe it will be the same.”
Lee, who’s of Taiwanese heritage, quickly found a home between the pipes. He started playing for the Rampage in 2010. A year later, Lee was chosen for the U.S. National Sled Hockey team. He helped backstop the U.S. team to a gold medal at the 2012 International Paralympic Committee Ice Sledge World Championship and a silver medal at the 2013 world championships.
“I love it. I guess you’ve got to be weird to stop pucks, but I really enjoy it,” he said. “I’m the kind of person that f I play an away game I love to hear the crowd get upset that I’ve made a magnificent save or a great save.”
Army Staff Sgt. Jen Lee, defending the goal. (Photo/USA Hockey, Bill Wippert)
Lee and Roman said the most enjoyable thing about being part of the sled hockey team is the locker room. The Rampage team is filled with members of all branches of the military.”We clown on each other and make fun of each other,” Lee said. “We always find ways to get ourselves going, motivate each other. We all know what we’ve got to do to prepare. Go out there like it’s a battlefield, prepare your boys, train well. It’s almost the same thing except you’re not getting shot at…except for me, really. I’m still getting shot at.”
The U.S. sled hockey program is serious business. The national and Paralympics team is coached by Jeff Sauer, the retired University of Wisconsin and Colorado College hockey coach who led the Badgers to NCAA hockey championships in 1983 and 1990. In a 31-year NCAA Division I coaching career, Sauer racked up 655 wins, two national titles, 12 NCAA tournament berths, six Western Collegiate HockeyAssociation playoff titles and two WCHA regular-season crowns.
